Energy harvesting power for the Internet of Things

Energy is everywhere within reach; it just needs to be harvested. This is the principle of energy harvesting. Today, energy harvesting wireless solutions are already well established in the commercial building automation sector. But the technology is just getting started. New application fields for batteryless, wireless communication will be found to further enhance the world around us.

Based on energy harvesting wireless technology, a wide range of energy-autonomous applications are currently available for connected buildings that use motion, light, or temperature differences as their energy source such as batteryless switches; intelligent window handles; temperature, moisture, and light sensors; presence detectors, heating valves; and smart home systems. However, building automation is by no means where energy harvesting wireless ends.

Multiple interconnections

Everybody’s talking about the Internet of Things (IoT). But how should billions of communicating devices be powered? The answer is by energy harvesting, and the reason is simple: Liberating sensors from external power, making them energy-autonomous, opens up unlimited processing and monitoring applications where cables or batteries represent an insurmountable hurdle. These features make energy harvesting wireless technology the ideal communication standard to easily and reliably interconnect thousands of individual devices in a system, as well as network them with other wireless protocols.

Today, energy harvesting wireless technology is widespread, providing M2M solutions in the building automation sector and bridging the control of light, HVAC, and other fields of building technology to smart buildings, smart metering, and energy management systems. This is the starting point to actuate further applications that lead to the IoT in the long term. The following four categories show what this could look like.

Monitoring and control

Wireless and batteryless technology significantly eases energy monitoring and control in buildings with little intervention into the existing systems. The wireless devices are highly flexible to install so that individual components, wall switches, sensors, and relay receivers can be easily networked to form an intelligent system without complex cabling. In addition, dispensing with batteries eliminates the burden of maintaining the devices’ energy supply in a regular time period, which can be up to each year.

An example for such a flexible automation system is HVAC control. Here, a thermostat, VAV (variable air volume), or fan coil controller receives information related to occupancy, temperature, humidity, window position, or CO2 from the respective batteryless sensors and controls the opening and closing of valve actuators for radiators, or dampers for VAV systems. At the same time, the controller sends status information to a central building automation system, and receives control messages from the BAS. This enables the building to be monitored from a central location that can be remote from the building itself, and building-wide settings, such as holiday shutdown, to be implemented. Enormous progress is also being made on the product side, leveraging advancements in energy harvesting. Self-powered radiator valves generate energy from the difference in temperature between the hot water and the surrounding air. This energy powers the communication with a controller or BAS system, and turns the valve itself. Without cables or batteries, these wireless devices are especially easy to install, and they require no maintenance.

In further optimized systems, central equipment such as boilers or air handling units are integrated into the wireless communication system, enabling scalable HVAC generation, visible and controllable over the Internet on a PC, tablet, or smartphone.

Performing tasks

Alarm systems are a second field that batteryless wireless technology is opening up, due to its specific features. Here, the reliability requirements are much more stringent than those required for lighting controls. A system failure not only means a malfunction but also can cause much more serious consequences for other systems that depend upon the equipment being monitored. It’s a fact that more malfunctions are caused by battery failures than by the electronics, especially in large systems. Energy harvesting overcomes this issue.

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There are already various batteryless wireless water detectors available that use miniaturized solar cells or motion energy converters to power wireless signals that report water leaks in areas such as water supply networks in spacious industrial facilities. In the AFRISO universal module, for example, the EnOcean wireless signal immediately sends the leakage information to a gateway controller or directly to a valve, causing the main water pipeline or the affected supply line to be shut off. A notification is sent to the user’s smartphone or smartpad at the same time to inform the user about the incident. In addition, the water valve can be opened and closed, independent of leakage notifications, by GSM connection via smartphone or smartpad.

Embedded processing

A major requirement of today’s and the future energy supply is the Smart Grid. It’s intended to network centralized and decentralized energy suppliers, including private homes producing electricity by photovoltaic installations, to an intelligent system that provides energy only when needed, updating in real time. This requires continuous data flow and processing from all involved parties, which means from millions of information points.

A key component is smart metering systems. To work reliably and cost-efficiently, interoperability between the meters is supplied by different manufacturers; this is why smart metering calls for standardized technologies. Consequently, the members of the EnOcean Alliance have defined a specific device communication protocol, the Automated Meter Reading (AMR) profile for batteryless wireless devices. Smart meter systems based on this open protocol are already available from a number of manufacturers. For example, Eltako meter components read and transmit the current electricity, water, and gas consumption, including accumulated meter figures, by means of energy harvesting wireless technology located at a variety of points inside a building. BSC software monitors and displays the current meter readings and compares them against default values. This makes all relevant data available for systems processing for intelligent energy management on demand.

Bridge to the cloud

Via similar gateways, the standard-based energy harvesting technology can also communicate with Ethernet, Wi-Fi, GSM/UMTS/CDMA, and other networks for integration in cloud services. Here, all data collected by batteryless wireless sensors is encrypted and transmitted to a cloud service over the Internet. The gateways connected to a control and visualization software by TCP/IP that can be used to control all relay receivers and sensors bidirectionally. Some manufacturers have developed a cloud solution that offers energy management as a service. Therefore, facility managers, building owners, and businesses can monitor important inventory, equipment, assets, and energy-related information from anywhere at any time, via the cloud. Critical building-related data is automatically pushed to the cloud, freeing owners and managers from the often-challenging coordination and expense of hosting on-site servers.

One of the major advantages of such a cloud-based solution is that the management system arrives completely precommissioned from the manufacturer and ongoing device commissioning is expertly done on behalf of the client and pushed out from the cloud. The users are granted unlimited access to their remote, dedicated virtual server with their own IP address, accessible from a desktop or smartphone — the perfect precondition for a deeply connected world of an IoT.

The energy harvesting market is growing and multiplies on a year-by-year basis. Forecasts show that this trend will continue, especially as the next generation of energy harvesting wireless solutions is just around the corner to pave the way to the Internet of Things.

Laurent Giai-Miniet is CEO of energy harvesting wireless solutions provider EnOcean and previously spent 20 years with Texas Instruments (TI), where he held several management positions including General Manager for Low Power RF Products (LPRF).